1. Field of The Invention
The present invention relates to a contact strip, and particularly to a high density contact strip having an arrangement which facilitates the separation of each terminal therefrom by means of a cutter.
2. The Prior Art
Computers having a high processing speed and occupying a small space are the trend of computer technology development. To meet the trend, connectors are developed having a compact arrangement of terminals. Such terminals are commonly stamped from a metal sheet and are joined at a middle portion thereof by a material band wherein a small pitch exists between adjacent terminals. The terminals are then separated from the band by means of a cutter before they are inserted into a connector housing. However, due to the arrangement of the terminals along the contact strip, previous attempts at separating the terminals by cutting have caused problems.
Referring to FIG. 1, a contact strip having a small pitch between adjacent terminals is shown. Each terminal has a connection portion 1, and a material band 2 joins the connection portions 1 together. A rectangular cutout 3 having a width equal to the pitch of the terminals is defined between adjacent connection portions 1 and the band 2. The terminals are separated from the contact strip by cutting along a pitch line bordering the connection portion 1 and the band 2 as shown in FIG. 2 by the dotted line "A". Since the cutter must be exactly positioned along the line "A" to prevent an improper cut, a slight deviation in alignment of the contact strip with the cutter will result in an improperly formed terminal.
To address this problem the terminals are separated from the contact strip by cutting through the connection portion 1 a slight distance from the band 2 as indicated in FIG. 3 by dotted line "B". With this arrangement the cutter does not require such precise alignment, however, since the cutter separates the connection portion 1 from the band 2 along three faces, material stress is concentrated at the corners where the faces meet causing the material surrounding this area to improperly deform which may adversely affect the engagement of the terminal with the related connector. In addition, the life span of the cutter 7 as shown in FIG. 4 is significantly shortened due to the wear caused by the high operational speed of the cutter 7 repeatedly cutting along the three faces 4, 5, 6.
Hence, an improved contact strip is needed to eliminate the above mentioned problems associated with separating terminals from a conventional contact strip.